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Louisiana Food Stamp Abusers Will Lose Benefits Over Wal-Mart Free For All

Real Korimyr #9

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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and his administration took steps late Wednesday to strip food stamp benefits from those who loaded up their shopping carts knowing they had insufficient funds in their Electronic Benefits Transfer accounts during the system failure in October.

As a result of the temporary outage, over 12,000 transactions showed non-sufficient funds once it got back online and retailers were able to process the purchases, according to The Advocate.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/11...ose-benefits-over-wal-mart-free-for-all-86692

As someone who collects food stamps-- and needs them to survive-- this absolutely sickens me and I think it's a goddamned shame that criminal charges are not being pursued.
 
Wow. Impressive move, Jindal. Good for you.


But hold on to your hat. You're about to get accused of everything in the book.

Why?

Too severe?

Not severe enough?

Just about right?
 
http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/11...ose-benefits-over-wal-mart-free-for-all-86692

As someone who collects food stamps-- and needs them to survive-- this absolutely sickens me and I think it's a goddamned shame that criminal charges are not being pursued.

Unfortunately, it was the retailer's fault for allowing it to happen. I think it would be a hard sell criminally since the retailers are the ones that overrode the protocols designed to protect them, and based upon what I have seen from some of it, there is no way you could convince me that the retailers did not know exactly what was going on.
 
Unfortunately, it was the retailer's fault for allowing it to happen. I think it would be a hard sell criminally since the retailers are the ones that overrode the protocols designed to protect them, and based upon what I have seen from some of it, there is no way you could convince me that the retailers did not know exactly what was going on.

So... you're thinking they were angling for the government to cover them on sales they knew were fraudulent, too? I can see it.
 
So... you're thinking they were angling for the government to cover them on sales they knew were fraudulent, too? I can see it.

Yes that is exactly what I think they were doing. Stores in my area posted the "EBT SYSTEM IS DOWN!!!!" signs and lost nothing.
 
Why?

Too severe?

Not severe enough?

Just about right?

Well, he's probably protected by being Indian from being accused of racism. But there is definitely a belief out there that it is morally appropriate to get everything out of government that you can. Stripping people who "need help" simply because they did so, therefore, will be seen as needlessly cruel. The most likely line will probably be that he is trying to appeal to the crueler, Randian elements of the Tea Party Base in order to line up for 2016, and he's willing to hurt these poor people to do it.
 
In Springhill, police detained a woman who pushed a cart with $700 in groceries up to a cash register despite having less than 50 cents on her food stamp card. Wal-Mart instructed police to release the woman without citing her.

$700 worth of groceries, seriously lady?!? The absolute nerve of some people.
 
Yes that is exactly what I think they were doing. Stores in my area posted the "EBT SYSTEM IS DOWN!!!!" signs and lost nothing.

There's an emergency protocol in place where they're supposed to limit EBT transactions to $50 while the system is down. Strikes me as perfectly reasonable.

Stopping sales entirely while the system is down means people like me can't eat.
 
$700 worth of groceries, seriously lady?!? The absolute nerve of some people.

Dishonesty is dishonesty. How about all the poor people who didn't get an extra $700?
 
Just the other day, I had an Obama Arizona iced tea and an Obama Dew. Someone bought a 1 lb bar of Obama chocolate. I wonder how much of Arizona iced tea sales (revenue) are EBT.
 
There's an emergency protocol in place where they're supposed to limit EBT transactions to $50 while the system is down. Strikes me as perfectly reasonable.

Stopping sales entirely while the system is down means people like me can't eat.

I said at the time that I felt sorry for people in that situation, but if a business is not going to be paid, they should not accept the cards and had every right to refuse service. It was an unfortunate situation caused by Xerox, but was really just a temporary thing akin to the post office being a day late delivering a social security check when they used to do that. Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches when you are dependent on other folks for something, be it food stamps or anything else.
 
There's an emergency protocol in place where they're supposed to limit EBT transactions to $50 while the system is down. Strikes me as perfectly reasonable.

Stopping sales entirely while the system is down means people like me can't eat.

Many were actually limiting to the $50 rather than not accepting EBT at all, particularly those stores like WalMart or grocery stores. Here in Cali though, almost everywhere that sales any food at all accepts EBT so it is not reasonable that all these places would need to have that "$50" limit in order for people to get food. As long as enough places still have it in the area.
 
This seems fair to me. The store is responsible for allowing the "purchases". The recipients are responsible for trying to overuse their EBT cards knowing that they didn't have enough. Any charges would have to come from WalMart, not the government. And WalMart isn't likely to do it, especially given their policy on shoplifting.
 
Punishing the innocent little children because mommy was a greedy moron. ;)

What about them? Should they have all done that?

Well, I've tried to give this some thought. Im not at all anti-welfare and if anything is troubling me, it's the apparent increase in people that are not doing well.

The topic appears to be that the people who egregiously and knowingly and deliberately took advantage of a technical flaw. I'm sure many people did NOT do that. It's similar to those cases where a bank inadvertently deposits funds in your account that are obviously above reasonable expectation. If you go over a few dollars, that might be normal but if you quickly withdraw substantial excess, you will be charged with a crime. Just because I lost my wallet doesn't entitle you to take the contents.

So, these people (presumably) stole - and they shouldn't reap rewards for their conduct. Hopefully, they bought necessities and the children will be able to eat canned chili.

When married men commit a crime, we don't let them off because they have a family. Should we?
 
Well, I've tried to give this some thought. Im not at all anti-welfare and if anything is troubling me, it's the apparent increase in people that are not doing well.

The topic appears to be that the people who egregiously and knowingly and deliberately took advantage of a technical flaw. I'm sure many people did NOT do that. It's similar to those cases where a bank inadvertently deposits funds in your account that are obviously above reasonable expectation. If you go over a few dollars, that might be normal but if you quickly withdraw substantial excess, you will be charged with a crime. Just because I lost my wallet doesn't entitle you to take the contents.

So, these people (presumably) stole - and they shouldn't reap rewards for their conduct. Hopefully, they bought necessities and the children will be able to eat canned chili.
I don't think that they are going after people just because they went over their limit a few dollars.

They want to punish the people who were loaning out their cards. That kind of thing.
 
I don't think that they are going after people just because they went over their limit a few dollars.

They want to punish the people who were loaning out their cards. That kind of thing.

That is also my assumption. I'd hope that any PLAUSIBLE excess would be forgiven. But if they went hundreds over, that is knowingly wrong. Should be easy to tell the good from the bad.
 
That is also my assumption. I'd hope that any PLAUSIBLE excess would be forgiven. But if they went hundreds over, that is knowingly wrong. Should be easy to tell the good from the bad.

$27.50 over the limit?

$43.12?

$44.18?

$60.04?

$98.30?

$99.99?

$100.00?

:D
 
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